Rescue Appliances should pretty much be a QAV/Rescue appliance in all cases... If the road crash is in rescue brigades own area, in the day time...and its on fire... Needs a 500-1000L Tank, Smallest yet good enough pump possible + Hosereel and thats it.
If that aint possible...the rescue truck shouldnt mobilise, just the fire appliance, with a rescue default occuring.
Back to BFF1 Respond to a Road Accident with you Zippy....... it's called fire protection at a scene....not neccessarily fire suppression. Needs to happen with or without the presence of "a fire".
To be serious about the job of RCR requires a fair suite of tools (not just those in charge) to be available. Given that a large amount of the CFS risk is open road, or 80kph or above signposted roads, then high speed impact and considerable passenger cell deformation is more likely to occur than in suburbia which has higher numbers of lower speed impacts. A QAV type appliance cannot cut it for this requirement. The CFS standard stowage for RCR is barely adequate for low speed impact collisions, let alone high speed, multi vehicle, or those involving road transport.
We know the current 34/34P builds dont cope well with multi roles (Hazmat+Rural, RCR + rural, or heaven forbid, RCR+Hazmat+Rural), and so there needs to be some method of ensuring a higher response of equipment that might be needed. The concept of the Sprinters as a Support Vehicle is an easy solution to the fact that the CFS doesnt seem to be able to design a fire appliance that can adequately do 2 roles, and go offroad for a grass/wildfire. Sadly when u look at the costs a Sprinter doesnt stack up;
- cost of the bare Emergency Services type Sprinter (with 3 or 4 seats)is approx $60k....even second hand flogged and tired ex Ambulance Service ones are around $35k
- fitout for even a basic storage suite that isnt an ergonomic disaster and meets OHS and crashworthy requirements would be around $30K
- it requires another bay in the station to secure expensive and highly attractive equipment (remember sets are regularly stolen here and interstate), for some not a problem, for some it is
- another driver is required; a consideration, not a precluder.
so for a cost of somewhere between $70k-$100k you will have an appliance, that still requires a fire vehicle respond with it.
Add $70k to the build cost of a 34P and you might get a proper build on an appliance that is more usuable. For the dozen or so rescue and hazmat brigades that do a number of jobs a year, this has to be a better answer (and thus the Services Pumper is born!). For low number Brigades that still have a real RCR or Hazmat Risk, maybe a simple single cab 16ft tray with a (simple, durable) pod is a better idea for a support vehicle (ie change from $50k).
Like everything, no one model suits all
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